EU Court Says Hotspot Owners Aren't Liable For 3rd-Party Piracy

Mickeycaskill writes: A preliminary ruling from a European Court of Justice Advocate General has said it is not reasonable for owners of public Wi-Fi hotspots to be held liable for copyright infringement committed by users on these networks. Sony took legal action against a German business owner after a third party allegedly illegally downloaded music to which the record label owned the rights to on the basis the network should have been secured. However this view has been rejected by the Advocate General who says it is impossible for all public Wi-Fi to be secured. His recommendation will now be debated by European judges.

Comments

Good to see this

[houghi]

I just hope it hold up till a final ruling. I also am pretty sure that posting a 'download your child porn her as anon dor free with a coffee' will not be a legal slogan for anybody.

What is interesting is that providers need to keep connection data for two years. So if they see somebody downloading childporn from everyday at 08:07-08:09 at the stations Starbucks, it is still possible to get a court order to get more data and set up an operation to arrest the person.

Just a bit more work. And that is a good thing as it will prevent random searches. A thing Germany has a bit of experience in and the USoA are getting aware of it.